IP Telephony and VoIP for Business | Queen

IP telephony (VoIP) modernizes business calls with lower costs and smart features. Here is what it offers.

Features

• Low-cost internal and external calls
• Call transfer and voicemail
• Easy extensions
• Scales with your team

Good fit

Ideal for growing companies that want flexible, cost-effective communication.

• Growing teams
• Multiple branches
• Cost savings

IP telephony for business: what changes

A traditional analogue exchange gives extensions and internal calls and little more. An IP PBX runs on the same network as everything else and adds the features companies actually ask for.

• An IVR menu that routes callers to the right department instead of a person answering and transferring.
• Call recording for quality and disputes.
• Reports on call volume and missed calls.
• Extensions that work from home or a mobile app.
• CRM integration so a customer's record opens as the phone rings.

The numbers to ask about

Two figures decide whether it fits, and neither is the price: concurrent calls (a function of trunk capacity, not extension count) and licensed extensions, since many systems charge per user above a base licence. A forty-person company rarely needs forty simultaneous lines.

The main types, and where each fits

Choosing networks and PBX starts with knowing the types rather than the brands. Each type was designed for a different situation, and matching the type to the situation matters more than the price. The wrong type in the wrong place is behind most systems that disappoint — not weak hardware.

Before you decide

Ask for a survey before a price — a number given over the phone is a guess that changes on site. For this system in particular, ask whether the cable is genuine copper Cat6 and whether the switch's total PoE budget — not its port count — actually covers your devices. And ask what happens the day something fails: who responds, how fast, and whether the handover left you the documentation to let anyone service the system.